First Day (Sunday)

Dana

The notice arrived Sunday morning as I was entering the Meeting House. The notice, the one all high school students know will eventually come: I had been selected to participate in the Naked In School Program next week. As in I’d have to attend school naked, perform reasonable requests from my peers concerning my body, all that. Given how my weekend had gone so far, I was not surprised. Shocked maybe, but not, deep down, surprised. I was really too exhausted and numb for surprise. Just one more knuckle-ball thrown at me by a universe that had apparently decided that this weekend was my turn at bat.

I acknowledged the notice, turned my phone off, and tried to consider myself carefully. Tried, amid everything slamming through my head. Focus, girl, I told myself. Which rang true within me. I’d already thought about excusing myself from First Day School to attend Meeting for Worship like an adult—my new turmoil brought clarity, at least in this. I caught up with Ellen, our youth group leader, and told her—not asking permission, mind, informing her of my decision. I was learning that lesson, too, slowly.

She watched my face as I spoke. “Are you sure?”

I nodded, looking her in the eyes. “I need to ... listen, right now.” To hold myself in the Inner Light for strength, for guidance.

She nodded. “Listen well.”

I twiddled my fingers at Steph and Ramon, the other teens, then slipped in the back door of the meeting room. I found a chair across from Mom—I wanted to be alone for this. A glance around at the half-filled room: I was, by far, the youngest person there. Never mind that. Time to center. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. And thought about strength.

I know—it’s not exactly good Quaker practice, but the previous time I attended a full Meeting for Worship, I found it easier to meditate on a topic. Focusing as a way of opening myself to the promptings of the Spirit. Use the focus to clear myself of everything else. Let the Inner Light shine through. Even so, it was hard to center, those first ten or so minutes—thoughts haring this way and that, jumping from strength to barriers, to fear, to exposure, to I don’t know what else.

And then Perry rose and spoke. Or Mr. Falcon, as I was still learning to call him in math class. I don’t remember his exact words, but he talked about the difficulty of hearing That of God in others when passions run high, especially around political topics—like the immigrant rights rally he’d attended yesterday, or the NIS Program resuming this week at his school. Our school. One phrase, though, spoke to me: “To leave one’s heart naked and to be open to the truth.” It entered my heart and rung me like a glass bell.

After he sat down, it was all I could think about, those words. Over the rest of the hour, three more spoke, but I barely heard their ministry. Again not good Quaker practice, but I had something close, something I needed to hear. Naked heart and being open, I thought. Naked and—

No—not “and”—they were the same thing. This. This was the something that I needed. That I needed to say.

Wait—”say”?

Oh no. Not now. I trembled, holding the impulse close. Trying to examine it. But I did have to say it. I’d been moved to speak only in workshops and youth gatherings, but never to minister to a full Meeting for Worship. But I knew with the certainty of my own existence that now I was going to. Because I had left myself open to the prompting of the Spirit. Because I had to keep doing it all this next week.

The door behind me opened quietly, and Ellen led in the First Day Class to sit in the empty row behind me—in a few minutes, Meeting would end. I didn’t turn around, didn’t look, as they settled. It was time. I wiped my damp palms against my jeans and stood, looking across the room at bowed heads and open faces. Faces of people awaiting my words of the spirit.

My voice came out firm, stronger than I expected given my trembling. “The strength to leave oneself open to the truth is the strength needed to face the truth. The Light shines clearly through a lens only when it is naked.”

And then my knees collapsed, and my butt plopped down in the metal seat. I was still trembling, shaking worse than when I’d first asked Brad out. Or yesterday, when Tara broke up with me, when Darrell laughed at me for not knowing about him or the other boys. My heart felt empty, drained—like a vessel with everything poured out. And yet I was utterly at peace.

I was still recovering when the Clerk turned to her neighbor and shook his hand—the signal for the close of Meeting. Everyone did the same. Ellen reached over my shoulder to take mine. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” I managed.

“First time?”

Speaking, she meant. I swallowed and nodded.

She smiled. “Then you listened well.”

During fellowship, after, a few Elders thanked me for my words—for my first vocal ministry. But only Perry, Mr. Falcon, guessed what my last word really meant.

“Are you—this week—?” he asked quietly.

I nodded. “First naked out of the gate,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. Chosen for the Program as a freshman during its first week of the year. First of all my classmates, none of whom had seen a naked student in school before—all of them eager to find out what it meant.

He didn’t wince—but the smile was twisted wry with pain. Sympathy pain. “If you need a refuge, my classroom is always open,” he told me.

I thought a moment, then nodded. “Thank you.”

I had a feeling I was going to need it.

Mike

I was level-grinding in Guildland Wars when I got the text. You know, the text. The one telling me I had been drafted sorry “selected” to participate next week in the Naked In School Program.